Current status of traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of COVID-19 in China

Chinese Medicine

Biao Huang¹  Yigang Wang¹  Mengdan Zhang¹  Fang Huang²  Liang Chu³ 

[1] College of Life and Medicine Sciences, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, No. 928, 2nd Street, Xiasha Higher Education Park, 310018, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China;Department of Pathology, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, People’s Hospital of Hangzhou Medical College, 310014, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China;Hepatic Surgery Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, No.1095 Jie Fang Avenue, 430030, Wuhan, Hubei, China;

关键词: SARS-CoV-2;    COVID-19;    Traditional Chinese medicine;    Clinical treatment;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13020-021-00461-y

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

An ongoing outbreak of severe respiratory illness and pneumonia caused by the severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) commenced in December 2019, and the disease was named as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Soon after, scientists identified the characteristics of SARS-CoV-2, including its genome sequence and protein structure. The clinical manifestations of COVID-19 have now been established; and nucleic acid amplification is used for the direct determination of the virus, whereas immunoassays can determine the antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Clinical trials of several antiviral drugs are ongoing. However, there is still no specific drugs to treat COVID-19. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was used in the treatment of COVID-19 during the early stages of the outbreak in China. Some ancient TCM prescriptions, which were efficacious in the treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002–03 and the influenza pandemic (H1N1) of 2009, have been improved by experienced TCM practitioners for the treatment of COVID-19 based on their clinical symptoms. These developed new prescriptions include Lianhua Qingwen capsules/granules, Jinhua Qinggan granules and XueBiJing injection, among others. In this review, we have summarized the presenting features of SARS-CoV-2, the clinical characteristics of COVID-19, and the progress in the treatment of COVID-19 using TCMs.

【 授权许可】

CC BY